On 16 February, we held a workshop to support the integration of citizen science in biodiversity monitoring by identifying key bottlenecks and challenges limiting its full potential. The event addressed issues such as governance models for data curation and ways to better recognise and value citizen science contributions to biodiversity monitoring.
Participants included representatives from citizen science initiatives (such as iNaturalist), biodiversity monitoring programmes involving citizens, Biodiversa+ partners, and members of the Enlarged Stakeholder Board.
Several key challenges were identified during the discussions, including:
- Data privacy and licensing: Concerns around citizen privacy and restrictive data licences can hinder data use and the long-term operation of platforms.
- Limited resources: Many initiatives face funding shortages, affecting the sustainability of platforms, citizen engagement, project coordination, and expert validation.
- Data quality and management: Issues include inconsistent taxonomies, observation gaps, non-standard methods, lack of validation processes, and poor data standardisation—making data management and analysis challenging.
- Perception and recognition: Citizen science is sometimes undervalued by policymakers and researchers, and citizen contributions often go uncredited.
- Data integration: Local data is often difficult to incorporate into global datasets.
- Governance: The fragmented landscape and lack of long-term political support complicate coordinated citizen involvement.
- Limited uptake: Citizen science data is underused in research and policy, partly due to misalignment between global data needs and citizen interests.
